Project Lore

I expected teasers to start popping up any day now, but Creative Labs' Soundblaster page isn't the first place I would've looked. Loading up the site will treat you to a short flash movie which depicts a half-glowing Horde symbol inside the ring of what seems to be the outside of a headset speaker. Considering what the company sells, this may end up being nothing more than an ad campaign for high-quality, World of Warcraft-themed gaming headphones to be revealed at Blizzcon (to be clear, this is speculation on my part). But that doesn't make it any less mysterious. Looking -- and listening -- closer reveals several interesting clues. First of all is the fact that the Maelstrom appears in the movie. As the short animation plays, a swirling light consumes the screen, eventually fading into the shape of the infamous spiral, supposed home to Queen Azshara. This, in and of itself, isn't earth-shattering news (did you catch the pun?). What intrigues me more is why the emblem of the Horde is overlaid on top of it, and why it is only "sort of" glowing. I hope I'm not reading too much into this, but from all we heard, the Horde is impacted far more by coming events than the Alliance. Of course, it says "To Be Continued...," which may indicate that we'll see more of the other faction in coming days. Likewise, the music playing you might recognize as "Lament of the Highborne." This is the song that Lady Sylvanas sings when you complete the quest "The Lady's Necklace." Sylvanas' role in the expansion is not yet known (she's still got those pesky betrayers to deal with), but guess what central character is a former Highborne? That's right, good old Azshara. In the background, you can also see also see part of the world map, though it's obscured by shadows and the various runes floating around. To the immediate right is Gilneas, which is determined to be home of the new race, the Worgen. The interesting thing about this is that the Maelstrom does not appear that close, or that far north on the official map. If you go take a line straight across the map from Gilneas and try to match it up to the corresponding coast on Kalimdor, you would find that it touches the zone of Azshara. The land mass on the left side of the image is even harder to make out, but it does not seem to correspond with the crescent shape of Azshara's coastline. I'm tempted to say that it might be the Goblin island, Kezan, simply to provide duality with the Worgen, but even of that I can't be sure. You can see what seems to be the peaks of mountains, but Kezan's mountainous region is found in the southwest portion of the island. Could it be some other part of Kalimdor? Durotar seems a likely candidate. Geez, I feel an awful lot like one of those gossiping tools on entertainment shows, trying to pick apart a new celebrity photo in the tabloids. The only thing we can be sure of is that it's a clever way for Creative to attract some attention during this tumultuous time for WoW fans. In the end, it doesn't really tell us anything we haven't already speculated upon. We can only wait to see what happens to the animation in the coming days and hope that new information can be gleaned then. Now that I've had my go, can you readers pick out anything that I missed? Why not offer up your own theories on what these symbols represents in the comments section? Update: As expected, this was an advertisement for new wireless headsets to be revealed at Blizzcon. Still, there's no denying that even the folks over at Soundblaster are clued into this whole Cataclysm thing. It's a shame we couldn't get anything more out of them!

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